Weaponized Words
How Language Is Being Used to Divide Us
Somewhere along the line, we stopped speaking the same language—even when we’re using the same words.
I’ve been observing this for decades now, going back at least to the 1990s. Bill Clinton was a master of rhetorical ambiguity, famously saying, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” That wasn’t just political maneuvering—it was the beginning of a broader cultural shift. One where words became tools for plausible deniability, for narrative control, and ultimately, for division.
Today, it’s worse. Much worse.
We’re living in an age of weaponized ambiguity, where people deliberately use words with charged meanings—knowing their audience will interpret them in one way—only to retreat into alternate definitions when challenged. It’s a bait-and-switch. Say something that implies evil, then claim innocence by redefining the word. The damage is already done, and the speaker walks away with clean hands.
Take the word “bigot.” Traditionally, it means someone who is intolerant of those with different opinions. But now, it’s often hurled at people who simply disagree with someone else’s ideology. Ironically, it’s frequently used by those who refuse to tolerate dissent—making them, by definition, bigots themselves. But the moment you call it out, the meaning shapeshifts: “Oh, I didn’t mean that kind of bigot.”
Same thing with “woke.” For some, it’s a celebration of social awareness and diversity, like what Gene Roddenberry envisioned with Star Trek. For others, it’s a symbol of identity politics and ideological warfare masquerading as virtue. Say you oppose “woke” ideology, and suddenly you’re accused of hating people with brown skin. The truth is, you’re not opposing diversity—you’re opposing the dogmatic enforcement of ideology under its banner. But nuance doesn’t sell. Outrage does.
Which brings us to the heart of it:
Drama sells. Truth doesn’t.
We’ve let journalists, educators, and content creators become arbiters of language, and many of them—whether for profit, power, or politics—have abandoned precision in favor of provocation. When words lose their shared meaning, dialogue becomes impossible. Trust erodes. Communication fails. People turn against one another not because they disagree on values, but because they’re speaking from different dictionaries.
And I don’t think it’s accidental.
This isn’t just linguistic laziness—it’s a strategy. Divide and conquer. If you can fracture a society along lines of miscommunication, you don’t need force to control it. You just need confusion. Suspicion. Misunderstanding. And if you can smear someone not for what they said, but for how you chose to define it, you win the narrative—at the cost of truth.
Language does evolve, yes. But that doesn’t mean we abdicate responsibility. If you work with words professionally—if you’re a teacher, writer, journalist, editor—it’s incumbent upon you to defend clarity. To use language precisely. To refuse to play games with meaning just to score ideological points.
Because if we don’t?
If we let words become weapons instead of tools?
We lose more than arguments.
We lose the ability to truly understand each other.
And without understanding, what’s left but conflict?